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Government set to unveil IRA status

by Dave Keating | September 2, 2008 at 11:33 pm | 77 views | add comment | 0 recommendations

Update 4pm EST - Well it's true, the military wing of the IRA is done.

The Independent Monitoring Commission has said the IRA's army council no longer operates and serves no function.

It says the IRA has relinquished the leadership and structures it used during the troubles.

There's been a lot of talk recently about whether the IRA is effectively dead. A new report due today in the UK will examine whether this is indeed the case.

The Government is due to publish a report on the status of the IRA as unionists and republicans enter talks on the future of the Northern Ireland government.

The Independent Monitoring Commission (IMC) is expected to find that the IRA's ruling Army Council remains intact, but poses no threat.

But the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) leader Peter Robinson has said he will not meet republican demands for the devolution of policing and justice powers to Stormont until the final end of the IRA.

Republicans have dismissed the issue and insisted the IRA left the stage after it decommissioned weapons in 2005 and ordered its members to follow a political path.